COTABATO CITY --- Army officials released on Monday, November 2, to a recipient school in Talayan, Maguindanao del Sur 2,000 textbooks donated by the Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu in Mandaue City in Cebu province.
The textbooks are earmarked for students of the Hadji Ali Baganian Memorial School (HABMS) in Barangay Tambunan in Talayan, mostly from marginalized ethnic Maguindanaon families.
Brig. Gen. Edgar Catu, commander of 6th ID, personally turned over, during a symbolic rite on Monday, the books to officials of the HABMS in Barangay Tambunan in Talayan, one of the 22 towns in Maguindanao del Sur.
The simple handover rite, held at the headquarters of the 6th ID in Camp Siongco in Barangay Awang in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte, was witnessed by Catu’s subordinate-officers and representatives from the HABMS and from the school that donated the textbooks.
The textbooks were channeled by officials of the Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu to the 6th ID, knowing its link with Moro communities in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces in the Bangsamoro region where its units have extensive multi-sector peacebuilding activities complementing the government’s Southern Mindanao peace process.
The 2,000 textbooks were personally received by Albert Hadjihil, a senior official of the HABMS, one of the schools in Talayan, hometown of Maguindanao del Sur Gov. Ali Midtimbang.
Midtimbang had told reporters on Tuesday that he is grateful to the donor of the textbooks.
Catu said he is hoping that other big schools outside of the Bangsamoro region will also donate textbooks that elementary pupils and high school students in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces in the Bangsamoro province can use in their studies.